Chilli con carne

Chilli con carne Whoopee-ti-yea Whoopee-kea-yea how many of you out there have watch good old western movies,seen cowboys sitting around the fire enjoying a tin plate full of Chilli and chunk of cornbread and saying, boy that looks so delicious.

Greetings to all fellow
home chefs here on the East Coast of Africa and around this beautiful world we live in.

Today we are going to share our yummy
Chilli recipe with you. Sounds great hey. I have been making this dish for years using various ground
meats, ingredients and spices, what I love about this recipe is its so easy to make, low on the budget strings and will send your taste buds to another level..

Method

Hey cookie we starving, cut out the chatter and start cooking we've had a hard, tiring day herding and branding Cattle. Guess we better get started, don't want to upset the boys.

Place a medium to large frying pan size on the hob

Turn heat up to medium.

Add the oil and heat for about 1 minute.

Add the onions, stirring until the onions are soft, and translucent.

Add garlic, red pepper, paprika, ground cumin, birds eye chillies, .

Give it a good stir, then leave it to cook until you get the beautiful aroma from the spices.

Add the meat to the pan

Keep stirring and prodding and breaking the mince until all the mince is in uniform size and there are no more pink bits.

Make sure you keep the heat hot enough for the meat to fry and become brown, rather than just stew.

Making the sauce.

Crumble 1 beef stock cube into 250ml hot water.

Pour this into the pan with the mince mixture and stir.

Add chopped tomatoes.

Add Worchester sauce, vinegar, chutney, tomato purée.

Bring to the boil, give it a good stir and put a lid on the pan.

Turn down the heat until it is gently bubbling and leave it for 20 - 30 minutes

Check on the pan occasionally to stir it making sure the sauce doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan or isn’t drying out,.

If it is, add ½ cup water.

Simmer gently.

The saucy mince mixture should look thick, moist and juicy.

Bring on the beans.

Drain and rinse 1 can of red kidney beans (if using Baked beans in tomato sauce do not rinse, empty all into the mince) stir them into the pot

Bring to med heat, and gently bubble without the lid for another 10 minutes, adding a little more water if it looks too dry.

Taste a bit of the chilli and season. According to ones taste.

It will probably may take a little more seasoning.

Now replace the lid, turn off the heat and leave your chilli to stand for 10 to 20 minutes before serving.

Great stuff Partner, you have just completed a great Chilli Con Carne. Time now to get out the ole tin plate and spoon plus a bottle of your favourite drink, pull up a log and sit around a log fire enjoying your chilli and chunk of corn bread just like the old cow hands did and still do today, YUMMY.

Whoopee-ti-yea Whoopee-kea- yea get along little doggies get along.

Please take a moment while your food is cooking and read below some interesting facts behind Chilli con carne history:"Some of the claims to chilli con carne invention fame come from Texas. There is a long history of chilli con carne in Texas, dating back to the mid 1800’s. You know all those pictures and movies of cowboys eating by the fire at night. Chances are, if they were in Texas USA, they were munching some delicious chilli con carne""There are also different claims to inventing chilli con carne from Mexico. In fact, it seems very likely Mexico invented chilli con carne. So, there isn’t an official person who invented chilli con carne, but we can say that the chance is big that it’s invented in Texas or in Mexico.

"Chilli con carne is the official dish of the U.S. state of Texas as designated by the House Concurrent Resolution Number 18 of the 65th Texas Legislature during its regular session in 1977""Before World War Two, hundreds of small, family-run chilli parlours (also known as "chilli joints") could be found throughout Texas and other states, particularly those in which émigré Texans had made new homes. Each establishment usually had a claim to some kind of secret recipe."

Okay enough of the history on Chilli con Carne. Let’s continue cooking

Plating

Below are a few ideas you can use for plating

Become a old Texas cowboy eat out of a tin plate with spoon and a chunk of fresh corn bread (I love this way)check out the easy recipe below on corn bread.

White brown or white bread.

A dollop of sour cream.

Any pasta dish.

Pizza topping.

Great way to start your day Fried egg on toast topped with chilli con carne for breakfast.

Use as a casserole with creamy mash potatoes and cheddar cheese baked in your oven(Banting Dieters can use Cauliflower mash)

Pita bread filling.

Filling for Pan Cakes.

With Mielie pap.

With Putu( An African dish made from mielie meal)

Filling for home made pastry pies.

White or brown rice.

Corn bread (see recipe below for this)

From the few examples above, one can go on and on ,we leave it to your imagination, I'm sure you will come up with more great ways of eating this mouth-watering dish. We would love to hear from you .